AWI Quarterly » 2010 Winter

The Humane Education Network’s 20th annual "A Voice for Animals" high school essay contest runs February 1 through March 31. The contest gives students the opportunity to express concerns about animal welfare and present solutions.

At the University of Notre Dame we have a system in place that allows the principle investigators to utilize our trained laboratory animal technicians and registered veterinary technicians to perform routine animal procedures such as blood sampling.

While implications of touch in interpersonal relationships among animals and humans has been debated for decades, Annie and Viktor Reinhardt’s assiduous research into the subject makes a provocative, yet thoughtful case for its value in The Magic of Touch.

While the lucrative and illicit bushmeat trade in Africa, South America and Asia - the sale of wild animal meat - continues to explode across borders, including into the U.S., the effect on species survival and the world’s ecosystem mounts each year.

The topic of empathy is certainly timely given the conflicts of our modern world. In The Age of Empathy, Frans de Waal asks us to consider the role of empathy in political and social issues ranging from Hurricane Katrina to the global economic crisis.

In a precedent setting decision, a federal court judge has issued a comprehensive ruling that an industrial wind energy farm in Greenbrier County, WV would kill and injure endangered Indiana bats in violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Last December, Representatives of 193 governments gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark for the 15th United Nations (UN) Climate Change conference in what marked the largest gathering of heads of state and governments in UN history.

Early last May in the heart of coastal British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, an area that safeguards one of the planet’s last grizzly bear-salmon strongholds, my team from the Raincoast Conservation Foundation set out to tackle a pivotal conservation problem with applied science, ethics and something we call "informed advocacy."